


Reflexive Acts

by Alias (anafabula)



Series: What if we had a daemon AU, but every time there’s magic physics it got longer [2]
Category: Magic: The Gathering
Genre: Alternate Universe - Daemons, Emotional/Psychological Abuse, Gen, I mean that in the ‘timeline is its own warning’ way, It’s set during Agents of Artifice, Non Consensual Daemon Touching, Tezzeret’s ethically- and educationally-questionable pedagogy, Vignette, canon-typical abuse, that’s the fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-04
Updated: 2019-04-04
Packaged: 2020-01-04 17:39:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 624
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18348500
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anafabula/pseuds/Alias
Summary: Tezzeret looks for all the worlds not only like this is normal, but like Jace has done something wrong by reacting to the contrary.





	Reflexive Acts

**Author's Note:**

> Fun fact: this was the first thing I wrote in this AU but it took me almost two years to realize it worked alone? Wild.

It's not quite that he moved too fast to think. _Fast,_ yes, but Jace knows the actual speed of thought and there's very little it outstrips. That just doesn't matter when he's not in anyone's head other than his own. All Jace gets to go off of is outside signals, muddy, slow, giving everyone who isn't him the upper hand.

Jace is physically slow, always has been, like in some fit of lack of foresight he traded speed in anything but thought for his own mind and made it retroactive. No one else seems to be. You don't survive the Consortium, probably, without being able to dodge. 

Unless you're Jace. 

Apparently.

Maya looks terribly small from here.

Maya _feels_ small; they're so used to her hewing close to Jace’s body that the physical fact of her independent existence is jarring. Tezzeret's hand is flat, accommodating even, and he looks for all the worlds like not only is this normal but Jace has done something wrong by reacting to the contrary. 

That's his resting expression where Jace is involved, admittedly. Maybe Jace shouldn't assume that would've changed, but this isn't exactly an eventuality he'd considered.

Maya's shivering. He's shivering. _They're_ shivering, then: silently, together, very far apart.

He restrains himself from reaching for Tezzeret's mind, barely, even now; homes in on Maya instead. Her feet are cold, he notes. Surreal.

Maybe he's grasping for anything that could be considered normal, even loosely, but if so he’s failed to find. Jace tells her something in the neighborhood of _Shhh it's okay it'll be okay we can be okay_ , and then pauses.

As far as Jace can tell, daemons are more sensitive to magic than even the most skilled mage, it's what makes species with internal daemons so powerful. Maya's in the metal hand, and there's mana bleeding off of it with a great consistent flow, like heat from a white-hot brand. It's not quite—even telekinesis wouldn't be fast enough and Jace is awful at it, what can he _do_ —something that makes sense to him, but it would be enough to planeswalk without even trying and maybe _that_ would be fast enough, though what if Tezzeret, still staring silently at him, what if he noticed in time, what if he closed his sharp-edged fist and—

“Beleren,” Tezzeret says, cutting off his racing thoughts. Jace looks up. “You've been losing focus.”

“Well,” Jace says, somewhat strangled. It's difficult to speak and on top of that what is he going — “Yes!” The _I'd think that was obvious_ doesn't quite make it out, which is probably a mercy.

“Neither of you are paying attention.” Tezzeret looks down at Maya, then back to Jace. “This is unacceptable.”

The sense that this is supposed to mean something is palpable. Jace is, however, somewhat distracted. “I—” Jace's shoulders do something unexpected and it cuts the words off.

“Push through it,” Tezzeret says.

Jace manages, “ _What?”_

“I refuse to go easy on you. Absent intervention, apparently, you each make one another worse. Push through it.”

* * *

“Again.”

Again.

* * *

Jace being speechless anyway is probably for the best, all things considered.

* * *

“Again.” 

Again.

* * *

“I think—” Jace gasps. The shaking never got any better but at least he's on the floor now. He'd think it's ignorable, but then he looks at Maya and stops thinking that. “Could you put her down?”

Tezzeret tilts his head. Then there's a clap of wings—Jace flinches—and two pairs of cold pale eyes are studying him instead of one. “I need to focus your attention somehow. Would you prefer I give her to Aike?”

“ _No,_ ” Jace says: like breathing, or screaming when hurt, or fleeing from capture.  

No response.

“No,” Jace repeats, with forced calm.

“Good. Now: again.”

**Author's Note:**

> Maya’s a blue and white fancy rat. (Small, can be skittish, remarkably intelligent.) She’s also entirely nonverbal. Aike is a great northern owl, which... yeah. 
> 
> (Periodic note: you feed the extrovert, you get more fic.)


End file.
